Answering another question

I had a couple requests for my email address. It is below in a form I hope the email harvesters cannot read. I do not want to be overrun with spam.

The address reads my name “vcangell” plus the word “writer” all run together at Gmail [dot] com.

Answering a couple of questions

I have received a couple of questions from several different people. I thought I would take the time to answer them today. First, I do not have a Facebook page. When Facebook was first becoming popular I was working for a company that requested we not join Facebook. We were never given a clear reason for this request. The company seemed to be a bit paranoid about “information” leaking out. If you want to start a page for the Bringer of Justice, please let me know before you do. You can post your comment here in my blog or email me.

The second question asks for more information about my disability. I have explained several times that I fell off a pile of logs on an obstacle course at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. I do not know what the official title of the obstacle was but we called it, “the backbreaker.” We named it that because if you fell you would fall on supporting members and that is what I did. You may think of logs as being rough with bark, but the logs it made up this obstacle had either been worn smooth by the many men going through the course or the logs had been smoothed before putting up. It was the third time we were going through the course, and it was a hot summer day, so we were sweaty and covered with dirt making it hard to hold onto the logs as you went through. The next thing I knew I woke up at the base hospital. I temporarily could not walk and had no feeling in my feet because they were sticking needles in my feet and I could not feel them. It scared me! They told me that I had a badly bruised spinal cord but no break.

It was many years later I began to experience back problems. I was to learn that it was happening because of something called “spinal stenosis.” Spinal stenosis is a narrowing of the open spaces within your spine, which can put pressure on your spinal cord and the nerves that travel through the spine. This condition generally happens because you have had an injury to the spine. The VA has been very good to me, and I had a seven hour operation that eliminated most of the pain. What cannot be treated now because of the danger of doing more damage is trying to remove excess bone around the nerves. This means you lose more and more function of whatever part of your legs is controlled by the nerve being pinched off as the bone continues to grow. For example, I have no feeling in parts of both of my feet because the nerves originating from L4 are being effected by the stenosis. One of the VA doctors put it very succinctly, “Look at it this way, it will not kill you, but just put you in a wheelchair.” His prediction seems to be coming true because I have a very limited ability to either stand or walk. My legs simply refuse to work if I do either too long. The VA classifies me as being 70% disabled. I hope this answers everyone’s questions, but if it does not, please feel free to ask anything.

Vir's character

I was discussing Bringer of Justice with a local reader. He was curious how the events at the end of the novel will influence the hero, Vir, in the second novel. I tried at the end of the novel with Vir’s actions and the little saying by Heraclitus to say little would change in Vir’s future actions. However, he does struggle to make sense of Kee’s death. I do not want to say more in fear of giving too much away.

Weather events

A weather event triggers the events in the second novel in this series. I have seen how weather can dramatically change people’s lives. As you know, I am an amateur radio operator and took the Skywarn training, so I could be an active weather spotter. One summer some years ago I had been trailing a storm looking for any tornado formation. I was told on the radio to turn around and come home since it seemed things were ending. On my way home, I spotted a rotating wall cloud which often means a tornado is forming. I pulled off the road to watch it and called it in on the radio. What seemed like just seconds later a small tornado formed and started right up the highway towards me. I immediately reported it on the radio and looked for an escape route but there was none. It was coming too fast to turnaround, and there was no way to go perpendicular to the tornado’s track. Luck was with me that day! The tornado lifted off the ground and started at a sharp angle away from the road. It did get close enough to actually move the car! If I had not had the Skywarn training, the tornado would have picked me in the car up because I would have driven directly into its path. It is likely that would have triggered life-changing if not life ending events.

The randomness of weather events is a good way to bring chaos into a story line.

Question about the new prologue

In working on the follow-up novel to the Bringer of Justice, I wanted to create a very short prologue so the next novel could be read without any knowledge of the first one. I have always disliked most prologues in fantasy novel series because in my view they tended to be too long. Below is the short two paragraph prologue I have written. This is just a draft. I would like to know what you think.

            “It has been just over two years on Reini since Ailis killed Kee. In honor of Kee’s sacrifice, they named their new village Kweeva. Thanks to King Kellum’s attempts to wipe out the magic users there had been many unmarried women in the group Vir rescued. The men in the expedition led by Captain Frelal quickly began to marry them, and there were soon new additions to the village. Life in Kweeva has settled into a pleasant routine.

            Back in Nepalle King Kellum was unhappy that his expedition never returned, but he is now happy because the magic users were gone. Lorcan and Ailis’ daughter, Voan, have banded together sure that Ailis is dead. Voan gave Lorcan the Book of the Corebeen, Yotik’s scepter, and the words to open the Book of the Corebeen, “Ahoa sevay tyon,” as Ailis had instructed if she did not return. With the source boards put away because the magic users were gone, Lorcan has been free to read the book and learn magic without any fear of detection by King Kellum.”

Mundane things of life

As much as I would like to be able to spend all my time writing, the mundane things of life can intrude. The last days have included a regularly scheduled physical, shopping for insurance, and other day-to-day activities. All these things have left little time to sit down here at the computer and talk about writing. The next few days promise more time free to spend here.